


the letters we left behind

by dreadfulbeauties



Category: Bloodborne (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Child Abuse, Gen, M/M, POV Second Person, Tragedy, vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:40:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27586223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreadfulbeauties/pseuds/dreadfulbeauties
Summary: Once upon a time, there was a little girl who adored her older brother. She thought that she would grow up to do great things when she was older.She did. Just not the way she or anyone else would have ever wanted to.
Relationships: Laurence & Vicar Amelia (Bloodborne), Laurence/Ludwig (Bloodborne)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	the letters we left behind

**i.**

You’re around five when you first start to notice that not all is right with Laurence.

For the first few years of your life you thought otherwise — he’s so gentle with you, helping you brush your hair and tuck it away from your face with ribbons, helping you get books off shelves. When one of the girls at school makes fun of you and you run home with snot bubbling hot on your upper lip, Laurence is the one who takes you into his arms first.

But that’s not Laurence. At least not all of him.

You see more of him than you or anyone would like to. You watch how he keeps forgetting to comb his hair or button up his uniform, the days that switch between him scarfing down food as if his life depends on it or barely touching his meals at all. He covers up the bruises circling his skin — Mama’s work, you saw it.

The night she ends up throwing a beer bottle at your face in anger and blood runs from the cracks, you have to go to the hospital to get the wounds stitched up. As the doctor cleans you up you both say it was an accident. Laurence insists on it, even though the concern in his voice is _wrong_. You can tell he wants to say, _It was our mother, she hurt Amelia, she hurt her, she scarred her like she scarred me and didn’t change a bit from when I was eight years old and she first had her._

That night you hear Laurence crying himself to sleep.

That’s also the night you learn to fear Mama. She doesn’t mean it — she said she was sorry, and she kisses your cuts better and tells you you’re her special little girl — but you’re afraid. You don’t learn to not make mistakes, you just learn how to hide them better.

**ii.**

You’re eight when you meet Laurence’s friends. He has two: Ludwig and Micolash. Micolash has a creaky voice and gaunt face, curly dark hair an unruly mess — you don’t like him very much at first but his smile with its crooked front teeth is real, and the way Laurence seems more at ease around him makes you happy. Then there is Ludwig. Ludwig is very tall and muscular with close-cropped brown hair, he looks a little like the princes in the storybooks the girls at school gushed about. You like girls, so you wouldn’t know what they think, but Ludwig is gentle.

It’s funny. Ludwig and Laurence are like more predictable versions of your mother. They fuss over you, but you don’t have to wonder if they’ll ever stop and snap at you. They seem happy down at Byrgenwerth — at least you know Ludwig and Micolash are. Laurence isn’t. He tells you about it, how even though things are getting better for him it’s still like he’s leaning too far back in his chair and there’s that moment his heart almost leaps out of his throat as he reaches forward to grab nothing.

Micolash likes to read the older fairytales to you: Of witches who want to chop up children for stew, of mermaids who must cut their tongues out to dance in the arms of their princes. You love them. You want to be a surgeon when you grow up, so you’re used to scary things. Ludwig shakes his head and talks to Micolash about how isn’t he scarring poor Amelia for life, but it’s fine. Laurence just lets Ludwig scoop him up in his arms and kiss him, telling him that his sister’s just like that and there’s not a thing wrong with it.

There’s still sleepless nights for your older brother. There are still the days of on-and-off eating, of him barely being able to lift up his pencil or get out of bed. But there’s hope there, too (you think) because of how he talks about Ludwig. You might be tired of it, but Ludwig’s here making your brother almost happy. Laurence just knows he has to keep everyone else around him content.

**iii.**

You’re thirteen when the Healing Church is founded. You study medicinal science at school, the girls who used to poke fun at you for wearing purple ribbons instead of green or for being the strange little girl who talks about how much she likes different species of bugs or wants to share what she learned in medical textbooks are far off now.

You’re proud of your brother. You want to be a doctor and save lives. He’s doing that, too. You make your way through the snow that night, white crunching beneath your footsteps and glistening gold beneath street lamps. Red-tinted knuckles knock on the door to where they’re staying. When Laurence answers you engulf him in a hug telling him how happy you are, how wonderful he is and how you hope thinks turn out alright. They will. You’ve read about doctors performing miracles. Laurence’s belief in the Old Blood is unwavering. He’s no different.

You tell Ludwig you’re proud too. He’ll be the first Hunter, the one to go after the beasts that stalk the night. Like the princes in old fairytales, except he’s real. He’s Laurence’s prince. 

There are the three of you: Ludwig carries you on his shoulders because you’re still small enough, Laurence follows. Through summer and winter, no matter what. There’s just you and the rest of the world so small compared to you.

**iv.**

You’re eighteen when your brother dies.

He’s been sick for the past few years. Whatever invisible sickness has plagued him since you were very young has only gotten worse. He distances himself, the days where he eats far less grow in number. This isn’t your brother, at least you don’t want it to be. He’s so thin, his red hair falling out and brown eyes dull, haggard and stumbling from room to room. He’s almost a ghost. He’s not the pretty young man you grew up with. There’s fire, too. Changes to him that you don’t want to believe.

The nights you spend at his bedside hurriedly trying to salvage him with whatever meager medical procedures you have are agonizing. Hearing his pained, choked breathing are the sounds that’ll stay in your nightmares. You use the Old Blood but it only makes him worse.

And then Laurence… is gone. Ludwig doesn’t know what happened to him (Ludwig, who’s got strange gaping mouth-like holes lining his side when you patch up his wounds). 

So you become Vicar. You didn’t want this. You thought you’d be a doctor because that was what you wanted and Laurence knew you would be happy.

But Laurence is dead. To leave the Healing Church behind to crumble seems a dishonor to your brother’s legacy. Your own hair’s turning white as you turn further and further to the Old Blood. 

So you have to go forward.

**v.**

You’re twenty-one when it ends. You think. You can’t remember anything very well. Your sight is fading, you are the Vicar. You hate all you stand for. You hate looking to the gods who will not answer, you think _What did you do with my brother?_

Ludwig’s gone, too. Micolash… they all are. You see Laurence as flames in your mind, Ludwig’s gaping mouths stretch wider open. Micolash is still the same, you chase him down corridor after corridor but he never looks back and you can’t catch up to him. You have no one. You’re certain the people of Yharnam hate you — why wouldn’t they? You surely deserve it.

You don’t get a dignified death. You just walk further and further through the once glorious Church, your footsteps too loud in your ears. Walking is a chore, your legs threaten to give out beneath you. You don’t know where you’re going and you don’t care. 

The end comes for you slowly. It hurts. But as the once dark red curls of your hair flatten into white, you think, _Laurence._

_Laurence. My brother. Ludwig. Micolash. Maria. My friends. My family. The people I loved, who loved me back._

_I shall see you on the other side again._

You remember nothing after that.

Some fairytales have happy endings, some have sad.

If you could remember the fairytales you grew up with (There you were, seated in Ludwig’s lap as Laurence read to you across from him) you’d wonder if yours has an ending at all.

**Author's Note:**

> ...i'm in a rather bad mood tonight. no, i won't elaborate as to why. i'm just too scared to get anything off my chest at this point, i'd much rather prefer to get out my upset through written words.
> 
> fyi: my laurence suffers from clinical depression, alongside the aftermath of trauma he acquired from the frankly horrible treatment of his abusive mother. this may seem very skewed from amelia's perspective, but if i were to justify it: she's autistic so she might not get what's up with her brother entirely, as well as the fact that i'm pretty sure yharnam just... does not HAVE a very good grasp on how to treat the mentally ill, considering the pseudo-victorian setting.


End file.
